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Dixville Notch Carries On Grand Voting Tradition At Midnight

February 8, 2016

There is something so American, and so politically nostalgic about the votes that were cast at midnight in the snowy town of Dixville Notch. Every four years I await the results as the voting day starts. I relish in this tradition.

The very first paragraph of Theodore White’s Making Of The President 1960 mentions this act. They had begun to vote in the villages of New Hampshire at midnight.

Tonight the voters of this small town with their nine citizens made the following statement.

Residents picked Bernie Sanders as the winner on the Democratic side, while John Kasich was the pick on the Republican side. Sanders had 4 votes, while Hillary Clinton got none.

Kasich received 3 votes, while Donald Trump got 2. None of the other candidates earned any votes.

Thanks for your comment. First let me say I have long felt that health care is a right, have long supported single payer, and consider the Medicare model the perfect vehicle for coverage.

When it comes to Sanders wishing to remake the system it comes down to what is possible at this point. There just is not political viability for his proposal from a wide enough swath of the electorate to 1) elect him on that issue, and 2) elect a congress that would do the heavy lifting of passing such a plan. I know the idea of slow movement is not something any of us wants to hear but that is how these large policy changes occur in a nation like ours. After all, what Truman talked about Obama finally was able to pass in some form,

Now to your question.

The ones who love numbers and are policy wonks on this matter often–though not all–line up on the side that Sanders (if somehow able to pass his idea) would create a giant hole in the deficit. There are also concerns that new taxes (be it payroll or income tax) used to fund his idea might be required to be more than twice as high as now contemplated. There is also the claim–and I have not followed this part closely–that Sanders still has not made all the details of his plan open to the public as of yet.

Finally, and to the question I always wish were asked of Sanders, is how does he plan to place his plan over the current health care system? We are talking about a huge and complex system that is unwieldy on a good day and how does one really transform it? I would even give him an additional minute on the debate stage to answer……. I really also want to re-make our debate structure so we can have these long detailed answers to the public.

Gregory, I know you’re a Hillary backer. I’d like to get your take on Bernie Sanders’ statement to Hillary Clinton that (paraphrase) “every other major country in the world has health care as a right and they are spending considerably less per capita than we are. I can’t accept the belief that the United States of America can’t do that.” She kept saying to Sanders that his “numbers don’t add up.” Sure, if Clinton is getting some of her “numbers” from the insurance companies, I’m sure they’ll never add up. But Sanders issues a very potent challenge here. If we can send a man to the moon, we ought to be able to figure out a way to insure all Americans at a decent price. Your thoughts?